No Smoking!

Today is National Smoke Out Day; or in other words No Smoking!  I shall abide by the strong advice and not light up, but that's easy for me as I haven't indulged in the wicked weed since my last "fag" on December 31st 1982.  It was a wonderful day for me as I had been seriously addicted for the better part of 30 years.

I first lit up when I was 15; a friend and I spent our pocket money on a packet of ten Red and Whites - a brand that has long been absent from tobacconist's shelves.  We took our illicit wares to Cassiobury Park in Watford and smoked two each.  We then divided up the rest for the week.  This practise was repeated for a long time.  I liked smoking and tried everything - cigarettes (fags!) pipes and cigars.  I didn't care that it was bad for you, but slowly the evidence was so overwhelming that it gnawed at me and I had to stop. 

Funnily enough all the men in my family smoked, but none of the women did.  And none of them was effected by the habit, including my great grandfather who died at aged 94.  The doctor said if he hadn't smoked he would have lived a lot longer - Good Grief!